Home > Encyclopedia of Psychology > Free Association

One of the basic techniques of classic psychoanalysis in which the patient says everything that comes to mind without editing or censoring.

The use of free association was pioneered by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, after he became dissatisfied with the hypnosis-based "cathartic" treatment of hysterical symptoms practiced by his colleague Josef Breuer (1842-1925), through which patients were able to recall traumatic experiences while under hypnosis and express the original emotions that had been repressed and forgotten. Freud found the limitations of hypnosis unsatisfactory and began...